Fault Management for Smart Wireless Sensor Networks

"Smart environments" are discussed as the next step in intelligent systems automation related to utilities, construction, industry, home and transportation. In the core of these environments are the wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSAN) which have seen an unprecedented development in the last decade both in terms of complexity and supporting concepts [1]. In this respect, there are still a number of issues that have to be solved in new ways suitable to the specifics and requirements of the smart environment. One such pressing issue is providing high level of fault tolerance. Fault tolerance is defined as the ability of a network to continue functioning in the presence of link and node failures. As the wireless media has highly varying characteristics and the nodes are easily prone to failures, the development of new fault tolerance algorithms is a pressing question. Furthermore, traditional layered protocol design has proved ineffective for WSAN and the new cross layer design approach has emerged as a foundation for protocol design in smart environments. The paper presents integrated fault tolerance module for WSAN based on the cross layer design approach. The results presented, based on packet loss, delay and energy consumption, support the thesis that adoption of the suggested fault management module improves the general performance of the network.